Badenoch not telling truth about Tory failures, says Truss

Telegraph

a day ago

Liz Truss has said Kemi Badenoch is not telling the truth about Tory failures.
Writing in The Telegraph, the former prime minister says the Tories are in 'serious trouble' unless they begin to admit the failings they made in their last government on human rights and the economy.
It comes after Mrs Badenoch wrote in The Telegraph that Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were making 'even bigger mistakes' than Ms Truss and had not learnt the lessons of her mini-budget.
Responding, Ms Truss says: 'It is disappointing that instead of serious thinking like this, Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives.
'I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated.
'It was a fatal mistake not to repeal Labour legislation like the Human Rights Act because the modernisers wanted to be the 'heirs to Blair'.
'Huge damage was done to our liberties through draconian lockdowns and enforcement championed by Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings.
'The economy was wrecked with profligate Covid spending by Sunak. The huge increase in immigration has been a disaster.'
The remarks risk igniting a row in the Conservative Party over Ms Truss's legacy.
Previously, Mrs Badenoch had only criticised Ms Truss in private, telling her shadow cabinet in January that it would be helpful if she made fewer interventions.
But in an article for The Telegraph, Mrs Badenoch said: 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books.'
Almost three years after the mini-budget of September 2022, Ms Reeves and Sir Keir still regularly resort to blaming the mini-budget for unpopular decisions on tax and spending.
But some in the Conservative Party argue that Ms Truss had the right vision for a low-tax economy.
Writing in The Telegraph, Ms Truss accuses her successor of spreading 'spurious narratives'.
She says: 'Kemi Badenoch has said Labour need to learn the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. She is wrong.
' Labour is doing the opposite of the mini-budget, which is why the country is headed for disaster.
'The mini-budget was the right approach at the right time that would have resulted in higher growth, lower debt and cheaper energy… Contrary to what Kemi says, it's not true that we had no plans to restrain spending. We wanted to link welfare increases to wages rather than prices, which would have saved £7bn in that year alone.'
Ms Truss says it was impossible to bring in policies associated with Javier Milei, the Argentine president, when Conservative MPs did not even support welfare reform.
She calls for the Office of Budget Responsibility to be scrapped and Bank of England independence to be rescinded, and says new leadership should be appointed at the Treasury.
The former prime minister quotes Mrs Badenoch who said in a recent speech: 'From now on, we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is difficult to hear.'
Ms Truss concludes: 'If she's not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative Party is in serious trouble.'
In her now infamous mini-budget in September 2022, Ms Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, her chancellor, announced a series of surprise tax cuts. It was not accompanied by a forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, nor did it contain any spending restraints.
It provoked a calamitous market reaction, with government borrowing costs surging and higher mortgage rates. Ms Truss resigned the next month.
Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, had led internal Tory criticism of the mini-budget, vowing last month that the party would 'never, ever' repeat it.
Baroness Maclean of Redditch, one of Mrs Badenoch's closest allies, told a meeting in June that the party had 'done the apologies' and should now move on to setting out policies.
But a few weeks later Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told activists that the Tories should keep acknowledging their mistakes.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: 'Labour are doubling down on the mistakes of the past – and Reform would go even further with more welfare spending and more borrowing. Only the Conservative Party is committed to reducing government spending and ensuring the country lives within its means.'
The real failures of 14 years of Conservative government
By Liz Truss
Kemi Badenoch has said Labour need to learn the lessons of the mini-budget and are making even bigger mistakes. She is wrong. Labour is doing the opposite of the mini-budget, which is why the country is headed for disaster.
The mini-budget was the right approach at the right time that would have resulted in higher growth, lower debt and cheaper energy. The 45p income tax rate raises virtually no revenue; abolishing it would help retain talent. Corporation tax kept at 19 per cent would have attracted businesses. Fracking would have lowered British energy prices and saved manufacturing industry.
Contrary to what Kemi says, it's not true that we had no plans to restrain spending. We wanted to link welfare increases to wages rather than prices, which would have saved £7bn in that year alone – far more than Labour's botched reforms. However, many Conservative MPs would not support it and it was their lack of support that was one of the primary problems. A Javier Milei agenda was just not possible in 2022 when the Conservative Parliamentary Party even baulked at welfare savings.
We can see from the counterfactual of both Sunak/Hunt and Starmer/Reeves that instead of the 'unfunded tax cuts' I was accused of, we have 'unfunded tax rises'. Whether the abolition of non-dom status or the increase in capital gains tax, our astronomic tax burden has driven talent out of the country and killed growth. This economic doom loop is likely to lead to a financial collapse and an inability for the UK to fund its debt.
The mini-budget was precisely a chance to escape this doom loop. Yet, it was sabotaged by the Bank of England and the Treasury – which didn't want to be challenged and wanted to cover up their failings – and Conservative MPs who either didn't believe in supply-side economics or cravenly wanted preferment under a Sunak premiership.
The price of British debt is now consistently higher than it was in 2022, yet Reeves does not face the constant wall of noise that I did, nor the level of criticism from those who were allegedly on side.
Failure to regulate
The guns were trained on me but the real culprit was the Bank of England. It admitted in a paper released last year that two-thirds of the market movement in autumn 2022 was down to its failure to regulate the pensions market. One of its jobs is ensuring financial stability. Another is holding down inflation. It failed on both counts.
The criticism of my failing to secure a forecast from the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) is also hogwash. Rishi Sunak did not seek an OBR forecast for Covid spending nor did Rachel Reeves for her 2025 spending review – both of which cost far more than the mini-budget package.
The difference was that I was taking on the economic establishment rather than going along with it. The Bank of England blamed me in order to protect its position. It has huge entrenched power and a ready audience in the mainstream media. After the Blair government made it unaccountable, monetary policy is no longer in the hands of the elected government.
The situation was made even worse when George Osborne established the OBR, embedding a Left-wing approach to fiscal policy. The OBR has consistently underestimated public spending and overestimated the revenue from tax rises. Despite every Budget that has been scored by the OBR 'hitting the debt target', borrowing always comes in 'higher than expected'.
If a new government wants serious economic change – emulating the policies of Milei and Trump – it will have to dismantle this apparatus first. Power must be returned to the executive to implement economic policy. The Bank of England Act 1998 should be repealed. The OBR should be abolished and new leadership appointed at the Treasury.
The Prime Minister – like the president of the United States – should be responsible for public spending with a similar structure to the US Office of Management and Budget.
Spurious narratives
It is disappointing that instead of serious thinking like this Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives. I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated.
It was a fatal mistake not to repeal Labour legislation like the Human Rights Act because the 'modernisers' wanted to be the 'heirs to Blair'. Huge damage was done to our liberties through draconian lockdowns and enforcement championed by Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings. The economy was wrecked with profligate Covid spending by Sunak. The huge increase in immigration has been a disaster.
In a recent speech Kemi said 'From now on, we are going to be telling the British people the truth even when it is difficult to hear'. If she's not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters, the Conservative Party is in serious trouble.